To summarise, essential fatty acid deficiency affects cells and tissues
throughout the entire body. No part of the body can function without them.
Essential fatty acid supplementation reverses all symptoms of essential fatty
acid deficiency.

Minor ingredients from oils

Another group of oil soluble substances present in seeds and in fresh
unrefined oils deserves attention. We call them the 'minor' ingredients.
They have attracted little attention so far, but deserve a lot. Unrefined
(health food trade) oils packaged in brown glass contain them. Refined
(supermarket, colourless, odourless, and tasteless) oils have had them
removed. Minor ingredients include phytosterols, antioxidants, lecithin,
flavour and odour molecules, chlorophyll and hundreds of others, some yet
unidentified special molecules.

'Minor ingredients' make up only a minor part of oils (hence the
'minor'), about 2% of the total on average. They are oil soluble 'phytochemicals'
- plant based molecules with major benefits on health.

Hundreds of different 'minor' ingredients are found in different oils.
We are just beginning to study them.

The benefits of traditional extra virgin (green) olive oil on health,
for instance, are based on its 'minor' ingredients, which improve liver
and gall bladder function, digestion, and cardiovascular function. This
is because its minor ingredients have not been removed by processing.

Most traditional diets that kept people free of degenerative conditions
contain about 15 to 20% of their calories as fats. The Inuit (Eskimo)
diet contained 6o% of its total calories as fats, much of it from raw
whale blubber. Inuit were free of blood clot induced heart attacks and
strokes. They were free of cancer and free of diabetes. Whale blubber
fatty acids are rich in essential fatty acid derivatives from Omega 3
and Omega 6 and are completely unprocessed.

Fats in tradition & diets contained both essential fatty acids. They
were unrefined and contained the 'minor' ingredients from the seeds and
nuts from which oils are pressed. Technology for removing health
supporting 'minor' ingredients from oils became widespread only in the
past 100 years.